USING WORDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 120, 22 May 1937, Page 14

USING WORDS.

POINTS IN WRITING.

ADDRESS TO PENWOMEN

The Rev. A. B. Chappell gave an interesting address at the Penwomen's Club yesterday afternoon on "Wantonness. With Worde." "We all need." he said, "a refresher course in this &übject." A weaknese in spelling, to his mind, was always associated with loose and careless thinking. More uee should be made of dictionaries. There was a tendency to-day to take liberties with the language. The words "coronial" and

"finalise," although often used, were not found in any dictionary. Inventivenese was a line thing, and new words must be coined, but this tended to become excessive. The speaker stressed the need of care in the use of adjectives and adjectival phrases. Nothing vae so fine a test of good or bad writing, he considered, as the choice of adjectives. The right adjective must be found, and this would rivet the attention.

A very much overworked word at the present time was "secure," which, also was often used in a wrong sense, as in the sentence, "The bats-man had secured his opponent's wicket," when he had really made it very "insecure." "Intriguing" should not be used for "fascinating." The split infinitive and the use of a preposition at the end of a sentence also came under the speaker's ban.

The president, Mrs. H. Carr Rollett, presided, and thanked the Rev. Mr. Chappell for his address. Mrs. Le Petit rendered two delightful songs.

A discussion was held earlier in the afternoon on the lack of encouragement given to talented New Zealanders, which led them to procure positions abroad, and ways in which this could be combated.